Calum Hill chasing 'huge' Open goal after sore St Andrews blow

Spots in the field for the 151st Open are filling up fast through the event’s Qualifying Series, with 25 tickets for a trip to Royal Liverpool having already been punched.

Calum Hill is determined to secure a spot in the 151st Open through opportunities in three DP World Tour events before the season's final major at Royal Liverpool. Picture: Yoshimasa Nakano/Getty Images.

But, starting with this week’s Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo, there are still some decent opportunities for players to secure a spot in the season’s final major.

Three spots are up for grabs at The Belfry to the three leading non-exempt players who make the cut and it’s the same over the next two weeks in the Made in Himmerland in Denmark and Genesis Scottish Open.

In addition, a minimum of 16 spots will be on offer in next Tuesday’s Final Qualifying at Dundonald Links, Royal Cinque Ports, Royal Porthcawl and West Lancashire.

Four Scots - Ewen Ferguson, Bob MacIntyre, Richie Ramsay and Connor Syme - are among 28 players teeing up at The Belfry who are already exempt for the Claret Jug event in three weeks’ time.

For six others, though, there’s an added incentive at the Sutton Coldfield venue and no-one is probably more determined to bolster that Caledonian contingent at Hoylake than Calum Hill.

The Fife-born player, after all, was on course to secure an exemption for last year’s 150th Open at St Andrews through the Race to Dubai Rankings only to be hit by an injury at the worst time and miss out on the milestone event.

“Yeah, huge,” admitted Hill of The Open being one of his goals over the next three weeks. “I want to be there in Liverpool, so I will be putting my foot down trying to have a good finish over the next three weeks and see what we can do.

“I would have been there in 2022. It was the top 30 in the Race to Dubai and I was 22nd then got injured and finished 31st. It didn’t matter in respect of me being unable to play last year, but, at the same time, it was a bit frustrating, so I deserve an Open (laughing).”

Meanwhile, Michael Block, the American club professional who grabbed the headlines in the PGA Championship earlier this year, is heading to Scotland next week to try and qualify for The Open.

Block is in the field for the aforementioned Final Qualifying event at Dundonald Links, where LIV Golf players Peter Uihlein and Jason Kokrak are also set to be among the hopefuls.

So, too, is Matt Kuchar, who agonisingly lost out to Jordan Spieth in a title battle at Royal Birkdale in 2017, while Rafa Cabrera Bello will be teeing up at the venue where he won the Scottish Open the same year.

It’s Block, though, who is likely to be the main crowd-puller in the 36-hole shoot-out at the Ayrshire venue after thrilling the sporting world at Oak Hill. After making the cut, he found himself playing alongside Rory McIlroy in the final round and, helped by making a fairytale hole-in-one at the 15th, a top-15 finish secured a spot in next year’s PGA of America event.

Block, who has subsequently secured spots in PGA Tour events, is out at 7.20am in the first round on Tuesday with TK Chantananuwat, the young Thai player who reached the semi-finals in last week’s Amateur Championship at Hillside, and England’s Alex Wrigley.